PEN condemns increased fatwa bounty on Salman Rushdie

The international free-speech campaigners have spoken out in defence of The Satanic Verses author, following an announcement of additional incentives to fulfil 1989 ruling

Threats against Salman Rushdie are “no match” for the author’s “will to write, speak, and rise to the defence of other targeted writers”, PEN America has said, in the wake of the $600,000 (£430,000) bounty raised by Iranian media outlets to reinforce the longstanding fatwa to kill the novelist, adding to the existing $2.8m already offered.